Cherisse Moe

At five years old Ryan Chan told every­body he want­ed to be a well-known fash­ion de­sign­er. At 25, he's well on his way to mak­ing that dream come true. Af­ter land­ing a spot on the Ja­maican fash­ion tele­vi­sion show, Mis­sion Cat­walk, Chan is putting his tal­ent where his mouth is. Chan, one of three Trinida­di­an fi­nal­ists in the com­pe­ti­tion, was on the judges' top four list since the show, which is pre-record­ed, kicked off in March. Cur­rent­ly in Trinidad un­til the com­pe­ti­tion re­sumes in June, the de­sign­er says he's in it to win it. But here's the in­ter­est­ing thing about this El So­cor­ro res­i­dent. Chan, al­so a graph­ic artist, ad­mits that he didn't know how to sew well un­til about two months be­fore the com­pe­ti­tion. Sounds fa­mil­iar? Hint-Anya Ay­oung-Chee!

His jour­ney to Mis­sion Cat­walk, he says, all be­gan with a spon­ta­neous mes­sage to fash­ion de­sign­er Meil­ing via the so­cial net­work­ing site, Twit­ter.

"One day I just sent a tweet ask­ing her if she gave sewing class­es," he ex­plained. "She replied a few days lat­er say­ing that she on­ly taught her in­terns." But Chan, a self-taught fash­ion and jew­el­ry de­sign­er, isn't one to take no for an an­swer. The for­mer Barataria Se­nior Com­pre­hen­sive alum­nus took mat­ters in­to his own hands. Armed with his lat­est port­fo­lio, he vis­it­ed Meil­ing at her Wood­brook stu­dio two days lat­er. "I showed her my de­signs and she was im­pressed. I'm a mas­ter at il­lus­tra­tions but she said I had a lit­tle work to do with my de­sign­ing." Tak­ing that ad­vice to heart, Chan, who has de­signed for top mas bands lo­cal­ly, re­gion­al­ly and in Mi­a­mi, went back to his draw­ing board and spent the next week hon­ing his skills. When he met Meil­ing the sec­ond time around, his im­proved col­lec­tion re­ceived the de­sign­er's nod of ap­proval. A month lat­er, Meil­ing would ask Chan to au­di­tion for the Ja­maican de­sign­ing com­pe­ti­tion.

That boy

Leav­ing his com­fort zone, he ad­mits, wasn't that easy. "I nev­er left Trinidad be­fore so it was a dif­fi­cult thing to do," he said.

"I had to think about it a lot be­cause it meant me leav­ing my house to go live with ran­dom peo­ple in a strange coun­try." To­day, Chan has no re­grets. And why would he? In ad­di­tion to brag­ging rights, this sea­son's win­ner will re­ceive a show­ing at Lon­don Fash­ion Week; $500,000 fund­ing to start a cloth­ing line; a six-page ed­i­to­r­i­al spread in Ocean Style Mag­a­zine; equip­ment val­ued at $200,000; a con­tract to sell their de­signs at So­ho Bou­tique, and a schol­ar­ship to pur­sue a fash­ion pro­gramme at Lon­don Col­lege of Fash­ion. For Chan, be­ing on the fash­ion show has oth­er ad­van­tages. "I'm get­ting very pop­u­lar with the women. Every­where I go peo­ple are like, 'look, it's that boy from the show.' It's over­whelm­ing. I can't walk any­where with­out peo­ple call­ing me out."

Don't give up

Thank­ful to his fam­i­ly and friends, who he says are his pil­lars of strength and sup­port, Chan promis­es to put his best de­signs for­ward through­out the show, which con­cludes in Sep­tem­ber. "My de­signs are very unique and out of the box. I've re­alised that I'm amaz­ing at gowns. And it's some­thing I've on­ly no­ticed from be­ing on the show. Now, all my fe­male friends want me to make them a dress." To those hop­ing to make a ca­reer in fash­ion, Chan of­fered this ad­vice. "Just keep at it. At times, you'll feel like you're go­ing nowhere. It hap­pened to me too. But, just don't give up." This de­sign­er is quite the pro­fes­sion­al. When asked which de­sign­ers have been axed, he re­spond­ed with a smile, "Yes, I know who they are but I'm sor­ry, I can't say. "I would tell you if I could but I signed a con­tract."